Consciousness of apple requires three points of view: stepped in to the experience (neural networks provide the apple in our mind), stepped out to consider it as a concept in our conceptual system, and compare those two to see how well they fit, and to alternate back and forth between the two. Social experience helps us more consciously distinguish between the two, and also to construct a shared "reality" where we talk about a "real" apple rather than the apple presented in our mind. Predictive processing (presenting hypotheses) is part of the conceptual system and matches it to experience.

spider does not think in making a web but nature thinks

Consciousness is not something we are but something we participate in.

Extended mind supports weak consciousness, extended community of mind and will likewise.

Choosing to be ambiguous or unambiguous - living in the gap

Consciousness: Thomas Nagle, Thomas Metzinger.

Thomas Metzinger.

Rick Muller.

By awareness I mean the growth in consciousness as we rise from {{Spirit}} (+0) to {{Structure}} (+1) to {{Representations}} (+2) to {{Unity}} (+3). I think that this is an increase in the scope of {{Self-understanding}}: nothing, something, anything, everything.

I am finding it helpful to consider these ideas in terms of models of the
workings of the brain. I thank neuroscientist Giedrius Buracas
http://www.cnl.salk.edu/~giedrius/ for a very helpful and stimulating
conversation last week in San Diego. We talked about:

Giedrius and I were roommates in graduate school. He understands my approach
and so I was able to enjoy deep conversation with him. He is strongly
grounded in a scientific and material point of view. This helped me look at
things in a fresh light. I stress that in what follows I focus on my own
interpretations.

Over the Christmas vacation I had read parts of Jeff Hawkins's book "On
Intelligence" and so we were able to start from that. Jeff Hawkins is
particularly interested in the cerebral cortex as a scrunched-up
napkin-sized
sheet which our mind uses for drawing its conclusions. This sheet can be
used
for all manner of purposes, so that, for example, the portion that normally
would be used for sight gets repurposed in the blind for reading braille.
Giedrius added that every function of the brain takes place both on this
sheet but also in the structures beneath it. I imagine that the
heterogeneous
structure of our "reptilian" brain gets projected onto this sheet.

Jeff Hawkins emphasizes the discovery that there is ten times as much neural
activity leading from the cognitive centers to the sensory centers than the
other way around. This goes counter to the common understanding of the
brain as a synthesizer of sensory input. Indeed, it suggest the opposite:
That our mind is continuously projecting and checking absolutely everything
it believes about the current reality. We are living as if in our mind's
hologram.

This means that our mind is ever checking on "old" information and not just
"new" information. Imagine being in a completely quiet room, and then
suppose that everything stayed quiet even as you entered a busy street. You
would know that something is very wrong - that you are not hearing anything!
Indeed, you would probably notice even as you opened the door. Yet you have
not received any "new" information or any signal at all. Instead, you are
checking on what you already expect from before. But furthermore, your mind
continues to function even when very strange things are happening.

Giedrius believes that the mechanism of consciousness is key to all manner
of
unanswered questions about the brain, just as the discovery of DNA answered
so
many questions in biology, genetics, biochemistry and evolution. He thinks
of
it in terms of our system of attention. Our attention focuses on that which
is unexpected. It is an entire system that is expecting the unexpected. It
is a complex model of our entire life by which we anticipate the unexpected
and organize our response. Just as we are ever projecting "what" our entire
world is like, so with our attention we are ever projecting "how" it works.
Our attention is likewise projecting and checking all of its assumptions.
Indeed, this checking takes place through the same cerebral cortex that
serves as the medium for such checking, just as in a computer data and
programs are stored in the same media, so that programs may be treated as
data. Whereas our checking of the world is an interlinked set of disparate
checks, our attention is a sparse system for arriving at the unity which we
focus on to deal with the unexpected.

Giedrius thinks of consciousness as the projecting and checking of this
system of attention as to whether it is working appropriately. I venture
that consciousness is projecting and checking the unity of the system of
attention. Whenever the system of attention is failing to model the
unexpected and cope with it, then the consciousness checks the system of
attention and considers whether the world is at fault - verifiably strange
things are happening - or our model is at fault - it does not hang together.
Our consciousness allows us to persist in conflict with the world and yet to
resolve conflict within our model of it. Our consciousness projects and
checks "why" the world is as it is.

I think I've been spending too little time recently in the field of
consciousness. I've been busy with life, with work, family, with
preparing for moving. All of which is good, but typically what really
keeps me going in life is something more - an exploration of what it
is all about, how the universe works, and what I am, and what my
limits are. And usually things work best if I start with my own
consciousness, as opposed to taking the material universe too
seriously.

In having that kind of discussion, there's the fundamental problem
that people have very different world views about consciousness,
which some times makes it difficult to have the same conversation.
Well, those world views do divide up into certain main categories,
such as:

1. Consciousness is something fundamental and eternal, and the material universe as we see it, as well as our own existence, is all some kind of special case of that consciousness.

2. The universe is fundamentally material and non-sentient. A long series of coincidences between random non-sentient material components have surprisingly produced organic machines that are capable of self-reflective thinking.

and, for the sake of people who sort of might fit in number 1, but who don't feel they're allowed to think about it:

3. God created the universe and it is none of your damn business. Your only hope is to understand and obey God's commands.

1 would mostly be new age people, buddhists, hindus, other religious people who feel safe to think for themselves, plus an assortment ofdifferent philosophers.

2 would be many scientifically oriented people, as well as atheists.

3 would be fundamentalist religious people of various kinds.

Now, I would personally go with #1. But I get along fine with science
people. And there's nothing particularly un-scientific about #1.
These are all theories, and science is about coming up with the
theories that best will predict things, and to test how well you
succeed.

In general I can have a perfectly enjoyable discussion with anybody
who will grant that their world view is just that - a world view. A
model, a theory of how things work. But to the degree that we take
our models for Truth, for The Way Things Really Are, then
communication starts being a bit difficult.

For somebody who belongs firmly in #2, consciousness is maybe an
interesting subject, but in a very different way than for a #1
person. The #2 person might be very interested in how to construct
intelligence artificially, and in how to preserve consciousness,
dreaming maybe of downloading consciousness to a computer. Which I'd
have rather little interest in. I'd rather figure out how to stay in
touch with the aspect of my consciousness that exists eternally and
isn't limited by my current physical existence. It is not a matter of
preserving it in a test tube, but rather of helping it shine through.

I'd expect that science and spirituality will meet, and it won't be a
matter of two totally different worlds any longer. Quantum physics,
evolutionary biology and systems thinking might very well solidify
principles that otherwise were presented in metaphorical form in
spiritual traditions. They already have, to a large extent, but it
hasn't quite sunk in for many believers in science.

If you are interested in consciousness, and perhaps even knowing about the
different approaches that have been taken to consciousness, i would like to
encourage you to look into the *Journal of Consciousness Studies*, which is
devoted to this topic. Unlike most science journals, we regularly publish
papers that take a religious point of view; unlike new age journals, we are
completely rigorous about content; unlike any other journal that i know, we
are really interdisciplinary, having published papers based on physics,
feminism, mathematics, literature, psychology, philosophy (lots of serious
philosophy of mind), neuroscience, biology, art criticism, sociology,
medicine, law, computer science, buddhist studies, history, evolution,
......., all rigorously peer reviewed. Science and religion meet here every
month, along with the humanities, including even some poetry and art.

For your information, Buddhists dont believe in anything being eternal;
the transience of all things, including consciusness, is one of the most
fundamental points of basic buddhism, shared by all traditions. I think
you are confusing Buddhism with Hinduism.

As for achieving world peace, democracy, etc., Buddhists believe in working
on yourself first, right speech, right livelihood, etc., which seems to
require some effort, mainly meditation, to avoid becoming rigid and preachy
and doing more harm than good. My personal opinion is that technology to
interconnect 10^5 people would most likely be exploited by those with power,
just as are radio, newspapers, TV, ..., and increasingly, the internet. We
need to develop inner peace, individually and collectively, rather than just
technology.

I will try to forward you some interesting bits from time to time.

Cheers,

joseph

JosephGoguen: Another strand of all this relates to consciousness and to
the ultimate concerns of the Buddhists who created concepts
like sunyata ("mu" in Japanese), which is to fully liberate
the mind. Consciousness studies is another new field that
is currently exploding with new results and new ideas, in
part due to the movements mentioned above, but mainly (i
think) due to new technology for observing the mind at work,
e.g., fMRI and PET scans. It has been shown that advanced
meditators really do have different minds from the rest of us,
and many old myths about memory, perception, emotion, etc.
have been deposed. I think we are coming to understand what
it means to be human much better than ever before, and along
with that, what it means to be alive. So Ibrahim's questions
are really very timely, very deep, and very productive!

{{Andrius}}

This very much relates to my friend John Harland's (a fellow grad student from UCSD) theory of consciousness. It's actually simple but very powerful: You simply consider the statements relevant to some domain and the ability to check if they are true or not. Something is conscious if it shares this "Turing test" type ability - but this is crucial! it is with respect to that domain. (I suppose also the ability to reflect upon oneself or another being that it is able to apply such tests. I suppose this accords with the operation +3 that I think of as consciousness, by which I think we add three perspectives (to a division of everything) so as to allow for such a generic "other" (such as ourselves but also others) who can make such tests). So there is a huge partial order of consciousnesses that accords with the many domains out there. As a practical example, he's interested in how a deaf person might be able to "see" sound in an intuitive way, this should be possible. Similarly, I'm interested to be able to not just 'know anything' but to be able to know, in particular, that vantage point from which I can know anything, looking out on all dominion. Which is to say, to sit in God's lap, and look out with him.

In passing, on your idea of life: ive sometimes thought that "life is the
consciousness of god" -- though usually without god.

== joseph

> In passing, on your idea of life: ive sometimes thought that "life is the
> consciousness of god" -- though usually without god.
>
> == joseph

I'm curious to hear more about your thought that "life is the
consciousness of god", with or without god, and what is the nature of
that god, even just as a dummy variable.

The idea that "life is the goodness of God" together with "everlasting
life is the understanding of the goodness of God" yields:
"everlasting life is the understanding of life".

This does seem close to the self-understanding that relates to
consciousness. And it also injects a quality of stepping out, into the
everlasting, the absolute. That also seems part of consciousness.

Now I feel confused. I guess I should ask what you mean. Do you mean
life is "god's consciousness" or "consciousness of the
concept/nature/presence of god"?

Just as a side note, I think of the Trinity as a threesome given by
consciousness of the nullsome. God is one, but to be conscious of God,
we resort to "taking a stand - following through - reflecting", and in
following his will, to obeying or believing or caring.

Joseph, Thank you for your letter and link. I agree that the onus is on
me to make the case on the limited number of structures. One of the
reasons that I'm working on a unifying framework on the structures is
that from there I want to be able to generate three different kinds of
language: argumentation, verbalization, narration. And all the manner
of patterns that come up. I have some good results and/or material for
each, much of the kind that you point to.

Qualia

See also: {{Consciousness}}, {{Concepts}}, {{Institutions}}

JosephGoguen: I have also been trying to relate my ideas about concepts
and logic to consciousness, and in particular, to qualia,
which i define as segments of perception that are
perceived as wholes (though they may still be seen to have
parts), and i have worked on applications to free jazz
improvisation. For these topics, see

Distinguish between introspection (=awareness of attention = +2) and consciousness (as the framework for awareness - the ability to turn it on or off). Turning awareness of is to focus on the "whole" of the division, rather than the "perspective".